Death in a White Tie Read Online Free PDF Page B

General and Mrs Halcut-Hackett he met his Waterloo. She was not so very plain but only rather disastrously uneventful. Every inch of this unhappy child had been prepared for the cocktail-party with passionate care and at great expense by her chaperone — one of those important American women with lovely faces and cast-iron figures. Lord Robert was greeted by Mrs Halcut-Hackett, who looked a little older than usual, and by her husband the General, a notable fire-eater who bawled “What!” two or three times and burst into loud surprising laughter which was his method of circulating massed gaiety. Lord Robert twinkled at him and passed on into the thick of the party. A servant whom he recognized as the Halcut-Hackett’s butler gave him a drink. “Then they’re not having Dimitri or anybody like that,” thought Lord Robert. He looked about him. On the right-hand side of the enormous room were collected the débutantes, and the young men who, in the last analysis, could make the antics of the best dance-bands in London, all the efforts of all the Dimitris, Miss Harrises, and Mrs Halcut-Hacketts to the tune of a thousand pounds, look like a single impotent gesture. Among them were the young men who were spoken of, in varying degrees of irony, as “The Debs’ Delight.” Lord Robert half suspected his nephew Donald of being a Debs’ Delight. There he was in the middle of it all with Bridget O’Brien, making himself agreeable. Very popular, evidently. “He’ll have to settle down,” thought Lord Robert. “He’s altogether too irresponsible and he’s beginning to look dissipated. Don’t like it.”
    Then he saw the plain protégée of Mrs Halcut-Hackett. She had just met a trio of incoming débutantes and had taken them to their right side of the room. He saw how they all spoke politely and pleasantly to her but without any air of intimacy. He saw her linger a moment while they were drawn into the whirlpool of high-pitched conversation. Then she turned away and stood looking towards the door where her chaperone dealt faithfully with the arrivals. She seemed utterly lost. Lord Robert crossed the room and greeted her with his old-fashioned bow.
    “How-de-do. This
is
a good party,” he said, with a beaming smile.
    “Oh! Oh — I’m so glad.”
    “I’m an old hand, y’know,” continued Lord Robert, “and I always judge a cocktail-party by the time that elapses between one’s paying one’s respects and getting a drink. Now this evening I was given this excellent drink within two minutes of shaking hands with the General. Being a thirsty, greedy old customer, I said to myself: ‘Good party.’ ”
    “I’m so glad,” repeated the child.
    She was staring, he noticed, at her chaperone, and he saw that Mrs Halcut-Hackett was talking to a tall smooth man with a heavy face, lack-lustre eyes and a proprietary manner. Lord Robert looked fixedly at this individual.
    “Do tell me,” he said, “who is that man with our hostess?”
    The girl started violently and without taking her gaze off Mrs Halcut-Hackett, said woodenly: “It’s Captain Withers.”
    “Ah,” thought Lord Robert, “I fancied it was.” Aloud he said: “Withers? Then it’s not the same feller. I rather thought I knew him.”
    “Oh,” said the protégée. She had turned her head slightly and he saw that she now looked at the General. “Like a frightened rabbit,” thought Lord Robert. “For all the world like a frightened rabbit.” The General had borne down upon his wife and Captain Withers. Lord Robert now witnessed a curious little scene. General Halcut-Hackett glared for three seconds at Captain Withers who smiled, bowed, and moved away. The General then spoke to his wife and immediately, for a fraction of a second, the terror — Lord Robert decided that terror was not too strong a word — that shone in the protégée’s eyes was reflected in the chaperone’s. Only for a second, and then with her husband she turned to greet a new